Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller

Lyricist Jerome "Jerry" Leiber (born April 25, 1933) and composer Mike Stoller (born March 13, 1933) are among the most influential American songwriters and record producers in post-World War II popular music.

Overview

Their first successes were as the writers of such crossover hit songs as "Hound Dog" and "Kansas City." Later in the 1950s, particularly through their work with The Coasters, they created a string of ground-breaking hits that are some of the most entertaining in rock and roll, by using the humorous vernacular of the teenagers sung in a style that was openly theatrical rather than personal, songs that include "Young Blood," "Searchin'," and "Yakety Yak." They were the first to surround black music with elaborate production values, enhancing its emotional power with The Drifters in "There Goes My Baby" and influencing Phil Spector who worked with them on recordings of The Drifters and Ben E. King. Leiber and Stoller went into the record business and, focusing on the "girl group" sound, released some of the greatest classics of the Brill Building period.

They wrote hits including "Love Me," "Loving You," "Don't," "Jailhouse Rock," and "King Creole," among others for Elvis Presley. They were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1985 and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

They currently live separately in Los Angeles, California.

Biography

1950s

Leiber came from Baltimore, Stoller from Long Island, but they met in Los Angeles in 1950, where Stoller was a freshman at Los Angeles City College while Leiber was a senior at Fairfax High. Stoller had graduated from Belmont High School. After school, Stoller played piano and Leiber worked in a record store and, when they met, they found they shared a love of blues and rhythm and blues. In 1950, Jimmy Witherspoon recorded and performed their first commercial song, "Real Ugly Woman." Their first hit composition was "Hard Times," recorded by Charles Brown, which was a rhythm and blues hit in 1952. "Kansas City," which was also recorded in 1952 (as "K. C. Loving") by Little Willie Littlefield, became a No. 1 hit in 1959 for Wilbert Harrison. In 1952, they wrote "Hound Dog" for Big Mama Thornton, which became a hit for her in 1953; it became a much bigger hit for Elvis Presley in 1956, which was a takeoff version of the song that Presley picked up from Freddie Bell's lounge act in Las Vegas. His showstopping mock-burlesque version of "Hound Dog," playfully bumping and grinding on the Milton Berle Show, created such public excitement that on the Steve Allen Show they slowed down his act, with an amused Presley in a tuxedo and blue suede shoes singing his hit to a basset hound. Allen pronounced Presley "a good sport"; and the Leiber-Stoller song would be forever linked to Presley. Their later songs often had lyrics more appropriate for pop music, and their combination of rhythm and blues with pop lyrics revolutionized pop, rock and roll and punk rock.

They formed Spark Records in 1953 with their mentor, Lester Sill. Their songs from this period include "Smokey Joe's Cafe" and "Riot in Cell Block #9," both recorded by The Robins. "Stand By Me" (written with Ben E. King), and "On Broadway" (written with Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil). For the Coasters alone, they wrote twenty-four songs that appeared in the US charts.

In 1955, Leiber and Stoller produced a recording of their song, "Black Denim Trousers And Motorcycle Boots," with the white vocal group, The Cheers. Soon after, the song was recorded by Édith Piaf in a French translation titled, "L'Homme à la Moto." The European royalties from another Cheers record, "Bazoom (I Need Your Lovin')," funded a 1956 trip to Europe for Stoller and his first wife, Meryl, on which they met Piaf. Their return to New York was aboard the ill-fated SS Andrea Doria, which was rammed and sunk by the Swedish liner MS Stockholm. The Stollers had to finish the journey to New York without the ship. After their rescue, Leiber greeted Stoller at the dock with the news that "Hound Dog" had become a hit for Presley.

1987 – Induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

1988 – Elvis Presley's recording of “Hound Dog” placed in the Grammy Hall of Fame

1991 – ASCAP Founders' Award

1994 – A star placed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in front of 7083 Hollywood Blvd., and their handprints embedded into the Hollywood Rockwalk

1996 – National Academy of Songwriters Lifetime Achievement Award

1997 – Distinguished Artist Award/Los Angeles Music Center

1999 – NARAS Trustees Award

2000 – Johnny Mercer Award/National Academy of Popular Music

2000 – Ivor Novello International Songwriters Award

2005 – ASMAC President’s Award

2005 – “Kansas City" named official song of Kansas City, Missouri

2005 – World Soundtrack Award/Flanders International Film Festival

Legacy

In the 1950s the rhythm and blues of the black entertainment world, up to then restricted to black clubs, was increasing its audience-share in areas previously reserved for traditional pop music, and the phenomenon now known as "crossover" became apparent. They released "Yakety Yak," which was a mainstream hit, as was the follow-up, "Charlie Brown." This was followed by "Along Came Jones," "Poison Ivy," "Shoppin' for Clothes," and "Little Egypt (Ying-Yang)."

They produced and co-wrote "There Goes My Baby," a hit for The Drifters in 1959, which introduced the use of strings for saxophone-like riffs and lavish production values into the established black R&B; sound, laying the groundwork for the soul music that would follow.

In 2009, Simon & Schuster published Hound Dog: The Leiber & Stoller Autobiography, written by Leiber and Stoller with David Ritz.

Defining songs

"There Goes My Baby" (with Ben E. King (as Benjamin Nelson), Lover Patterson, and George Treadwell)

"Hound Dog"

"Kansas City"

"Smokey Joe's Cafe"

"Yakety Yak"

"Poison Ivy"

"Charlie Brown"

"Ruby Baby"

"Stand By Me" (with Ben E. King)

"Jailhouse Rock"

"Love Potion No. 9"

"Searchin'"

"Young Blood" (with Doc Pomus)

"Is That All There Is?"

"I'm a Woman"

"Lucky Lips"

"On Broadway" (with Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil)

"Spanish Harlem" (Jerry Leiber and Phil Spector)

References

External links

Official Leiber & Stoller website

Interview with Mike Stoller

Spectropop Leiber & Stoller site

A list of Leiber/Stoller songs (Internet Archive)

Article on the career of Leiber & Stoller

Category:Musical duos Category:Articles about multiple people Category:American songwriters Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:Jewish American musicians Category:Jewish composers and songwriters Category:1933 births Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Los Angeles City College alumni Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:People from New York City Category:People from Baltimore, Maryland Category:People from Long Island Category:Living people